Our niece, Lisa, and family, who live in Madrid, Spain

January 14, 2021 - Thursday morning
26 degrees/cloudy/calm winds
Pentoga Road

Lisa shared a few photos of a very rare snowfall that has shut down Madrid and much of Spain. In a city where palm trees are more common than inclement winter weather, two feet of freshly fallen snow has brought Spain's largest city to a halt.

Still, that didn't stop the family from enjoying a rare wintertime treat, one that we take for granted here in the Upper Peninsula.

Back in the much more mundane UP, the place that has less snow on the ground than Madrid, Spain, I enjoyed Wednesday morning's walk.

After several days of dark, gloomy, weather, the sun shone brightly making the world on Pentoga Road sparkle.

In not so happy news, Sargie and I were saddened to hear of the passing of Larry the Heavy Equipment Guy. You may remember that Larry did our landscaping last summer and we became fond of the quiet, yet friendly and gentle man.

Larry was employed by the county and I'm told he was flagging traffic north of town when he was hit by a passing vehicle. According to the news, he died on scene. 

Larry lived only a mile away and we considered him a neighbor. Our hearts are heavy as we come to grips that the world has lost a good soul. 

I wonder why bad things happen to good people, but then something I was told long ago comes to mind when questioning God's grace. 

He doesn't promise the outcome of our daily living, only that He'll be here for us when we need Him. 

We're going to miss you Larry.

We enjoyed our daily drive on Wednesday and visited several of the area lakes. In no real hurry of any kind, we putted along several rural roads, talking, looking, and enjoying the day.

Back home, I changed into my ice fishing clothes, filled the four wheeler with fuel, and headed to the lake.

I reeled in one smallmouth bass, but that was it. As Dad used to say, all I really caught was a whole lot of fresh air, but it was all worth while. The temperature was nearing 40 with lots of sunshine and no wind.

I wanted to work in the shop at some point yesterday, so after a couple of hours on the ice, I returned home. More work was done on the segmented bowl, gluing more rings, practicing cuts for segmented pieces, and a pattern glued onto wood for my latest scroll saw project of my favorite breed of canine, a big, fat, ugly, bulldog.

You might ask how my superior mathematic skills fared in calculating the angles for a segmented ring. 

You know, the pie are squared and all that good stuff.

Well, I'm still "cyphering". Seems I ran out of fingers and toes on which to count so today, I'm adding popsicle sticks. 

All labor will be halted this afternoon when I venture to Eric the Dentist to have a top wisdom tooth pulled. Seems as I get older, tired of imparting quite so many deep thoughts, my wisdom teeth have decided to either flake, crack, or decay away. Eric wanted to pull this one a year ago, but being a serious, sound, academic, I wanted to hold onto what few brains I have left, even if they come in the form of a lowly tooth.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

The grass covered Maple Street in bustling downtown Pentoga Village, population 2.